Countdown To Sequester: Three Stories That Sum It Up

As a public service to our readers this week we've been offering a list of three stories each day that we think illuminate the looming sequester (or at least the debate over it), set to be triggered by the passing of Friday's deadline.

-- "How Sequester Cuts Are Made Can Be Telling" from the Los Angeles Times shows how the Pentagon is already playing a bit of a shell game with its budget. The story notes that while the U.S. Navy canceled the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, "on the same day that the Defense Department cuts are to begin, one of the Navy's newest vessels, the littoral combat ship Freedom, will set sail for Singapore on a long-planned eight-month deployment, part of the Obama administration's emphasis on rebuilding the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, officials said."

-- In "Sequester Will Sock A Vulnerable Economy,"The Washington Post points out that the D.C. area will bear the brunt of the sequester cuts, citing a Center for Regional Analysis estimate that "the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region is the recipient of 21 percent of the federal money subject to sequestration, even though it is home to less than 5 percent of the U.S. population."

-- Politico's "House Republicans To Meet on CR"notes that there's still a glimmer of hope of "kicking the can down the road" once again before Friday's sequester deadline: "House Republicans are convening a 'special' closed meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss a stopgap government funding measure to prevent a government shutdown," it says.